Group scrambling for replacement grievances after administration addresses issues they wanted to complain about in 2028
Seeking injunction before they exhaust remaining campaign issues
MANDEVILLE — Calling the situation “completely unacceptable,” members of M.O.M. (Mandevillians Opposed to Madden) held an emergency strategy session recently after Mayor Clay Madden and the City Council addressed another issue the organization had previously thought would make Madden unpopular.
“This has become a serious threat to our mission,” a MOM spokesperson said. “Every time we identify a problem, they keep trying to solve it. We’re running out of things to complain about.”
Madden, briefly interrupting production of his latest “Look What We Built” walking video, responded with, “Have you heard Trader Joe’s opens this week?”
Group seeks injunction
Unable to identify a crisis equal to those they had recently lost, members voted unanimously at their weekly meeting at Starbucks to ask the Louisiana Attorney General to immediately prohibit Madden and the City Council from solving any additional problems until MOM finds other things to complain about.
“We’re simply asking for a temporary injunction,” MOM president Karen Killjoy explained. “If this administration and council insists on fixing everything we’ve complained about, local opposition may cease to exist altogether, and that is a threat to democracy.”
State Attorney General Liz Murrill told reporters that while she may be known for her zest in municipal correspondence, she has no actual authority to issue any type of injunction. “I’m not sure who told them that,” she said.
Minimum Fund Balance
The next order of business before ordering scones was addressing the recent adoption of a minimum fund balance policy. Recently-adopted policy prevents the council from approving a budget that dips the unassigned fund balance below 30% of operating expenditures.
“For years we argued the city needed to stop spending from the pre-Madden surplus we took from the people,” one MOM member recalled. “Then they went out and adopted a law mandating a surplus. Nobody asked them to actually do it. What assholes.”
Killjoy said the only remaining option for them regarding this issue is to complain that the council’s selected minimum fund balance figure is way too low, no matter how big it might actually be.
“We think we can still salvage this, just as long as we can avoid saying what we think the minimum should be,” she said.
“How much should it be? Hell, we don’t know, we just have to say it needs to be a lot bigger than whatever they say it should be. It’s going to be a challenge.”
Structurally Balanced Budget
For years, critics argued the city should stop relying on one-time revenues to support recurring expenditures and instead the mayor should propose a structurally balanced budget.
But on June 30, Madden, fresh from a walking tour of Harbor Field’s new bathrooms, released what even long-time critics are calling a structurally balanced budget.
Killjoy said, “It never occurred to us that he would actually do it. We thought it would be our ‘forever’ issue. What a gut punch.”
The MOM spokesperson said they are brainstorming ideas on how they can salvage budgeting as a campaign issue for 2028.
“We’re hoping that with enough social media pressure and AI-generated memes that make people look fat, gay or kissing, we can guilt Madden into cutting the employee 10% retirement contribution. This could make people hate him, but then again, it could make a lot of other people like him more. Tough call.”
Moving forward
Having failed to identify any major unresolved crises, MOM voted to launch a new public awareness campaign under the slogan:
“Stop the Madden-ness.”
“We believe we have a whole slew of positives in Mandeville that could be spun into negatives with the right help from our crack social media team of Gen-Zers,” Killjoy told The Mandevillain.
MOM says they are encouraging residents to recognize the hidden dangers of balanced budgets, appreciating home values, highly ranked schools, thriving small businesses, low crime, and other quality-of-life indicators before it’s too late.
“Remember, in a town with a population of 13,000 people, we were able to get over 700 to vote for a candidate like Jeff Lyons. I think that speaks for itself,” Killjoy said.
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